This is sort of a follow-up to my post yesterday about a Democrat in Central Florida flipping a statehouse seat. Scott Maxwell is an Orlando Sentinel columnist — a centrist who plays it exactly down the middle, or at least did until Florida Republicans went full crypto-fascist.
Here are excerpts from Maxwell’s column on the special election:
Something weird is happening in Florida. Democrats are winning. For the first time in years.
When Navy veteran Tom Keen surprised the political establishment Tuesday, flipping a legislative district from red to blue, it was huge.
How huge? Well, the last time voters cast ballots in this district, Republicans won by 11 points. On Tuesday, they lost by 3. That’s a big swing — especially in a race where Republicans massively outspent their opponents.
More significantly, from a big-picture standpoint, this Democratic flip in Central Florida comes on the heels of other big, surprising Democratic swings…
As one who has covered politics in this state for more than a quarter of a century, I can tell you this is not normal. For years, Florida Democrats have racked up one loss after another. Sometimes by wee margins. Often by landslides. But almost always consistent losses.
Yet now — after a few years of a GOP supermajority in Tallahassee fuming about Disney, drag queens and rainbow flags while insurance rates skyrocketed and SAT scores dropped — voters seem ready for a course correction…
Again, I still think it’s way too early to predict a blue wave in Florida in 2024. It’s hard to overstate the money-advantage Republicans will have. Democrats haven’t unseated a Republican from statewide office in more than three decades. If Trump is on the ballot in November, he’ll energize the Republican base in a way few other candidates can. And it’s worth re-emphasizing that Democrats still aren’t turning out at the polls the way Republicans do. A slightly higher percentage of Republicans still cast ballots Tuesday.
But for now, we’re seeing a trend that says moderate voters have had enough of the culture chaos and are looking to balance the scales a bit — which is something Florida hasn’t seen in a long, long time.
I share Maxwell’s wait-and-see attitude about Florida’s fate, but I think he’s right to notice a growing backlash. As usual, Florida is the lag-wagon. The “red wave” we were told was coming for Democrats nationally in 2022 actually materialized here, which was the whole premise of the DeSantis 2024 candidacy.
Well, we can all see how that’s going. After DeSantis joins Tim Pawlenty, Scott Walker and Jeb Bush in the dustbin of media-created Republican presidential candidates who flopped spectacularly, voters will take a look at the actual GOP juggernaut — the defendant who’s currently acting out in court like a juvenile delinquent while jurors consider damage awards for his sexual assault victim’s successful defamation suit.
Maybe its naive of me, but outside the cult, I don’t think Trump is making a great case for his candidacy in court, and I suspect that will become clear once the pretenders are shooed offstage. As in Florida, we’ll see.
Open thread.
Baud
This always gets me, seeing as how we like to complain so much.
matt
This tracks with where I think we are nationally. I think the press is pushing out a lot of squid ink about Biden’s weakness and that will all come to nought as Biden rolls over Trump in November.
West of the Rockies
Add the name Santorum to the list of flameouts.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Dem turnout in FL is anemic compared to national data.
Another Scott
Nikki Fried and FlaDems have a good, upbeat, well done Twitter game. It’s working.
Gradually, and then suddenly…
Fingers crossed, Ms. Cracker.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
NotMax
Remember the leg tingles the media had for Fred Thompson?
dmsilev
@Baud: Some of that is …induced. Voter suppression is something that the GOP has put a lot of effort into over the years.
jonas
@NotMax: Oh, crap, that takes me back…
Reporters, dreamily: “Oooh, he so bipartisan…so centrist. And with a voice straight out of a pickup truck ad…”
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Betty:
My understanding (already suspect) is that the FL Dem party has been and remains, lemme see, what’s the technical term here, a shitshow.
Is there anything to suggest that’s changing? Or is what we’re seeing recently an aberration? Or nothing to do with the competence of the FL Dem party?
Jeffro
The party of Dobbs and “absolute immunity” is going to get quite the wake-up call this coming year.
GOOD
ETA: trumpov’s insane ALL CAPS rant about needing “absolute immunity” is so easy to dismiss
1)Apparently we didn’t need “absolute immunity” for our nation’s first 240 years (and first 44 presidents.
2)If the lack of “absolute immunity” is going to cause him ‘trauma’ (his words!) then maybe he shouldn’t run for president again.
PS: I appreciate him nearly confessing to “crossing the line”…keep it up, donnie dimwit!
Full (1am) rant:
Old School
Were there multiple races around the state? Or does that mean that Republicans voted Democrat?
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: We’re unusual even among Democrats.
Teri Kanefield was just talking about how unusual people with a high degree of online political engagement are, how different they are from normal voters, and how they’re easily pulled into outrage funnels. It seems to me like the right’s outrage funnels motivate people to vote, and the left’s outrage funnels motivate people NOT to vote, or at least not to vote Democratic.
I don’t know how we change that. What they always say is “well maybe Democrats could start by not SUCKING so much,” but in practice, they seem to move the goalposts when their demands are met, like the real attraction is to not be team players.
jonas
I’m happy to see Alina Habba’s ridiculous antics in court yesterday get the exposure and condemnation in the MSM they so richly deserve. What an assclown. I hope Carroll completely bankrupts him.
Baud
@Jeffro:
Send that to Biden stat. He can do something with it.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
I agree. I said the other day that the biggest problem (engaged} libs have is the divide with normies.
HumboldtBlue
Wow. When ya think of it like that, the phrase “Florida is not a battleground state” makes a lot more sense. I just learned that in 2021 registered Republicans outnumbered registered Dems for the first time in history. Now, how much of that is due to kicking registered voters off voter roles I don’t know, but it stands in stark contrast to what happened in California and really highlights the difference in the demographic makeup of the states.
Also, this message about the effectiveness and impact of the Biden administration needs more exposure.
UncleEbeneezer
@NotMax: Fred Thompson was so bad, he even dragged Law & Order down.
Speaking of politics and actors, we just started Feud: Betty & Joan, the 2017 Ryan Murphy series about Joan Crawford, Bette Davis and the making of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, and it’s really fun. We didn’t think we could stomach watching Susan Sarandon, due to her ridiculous, BothSides, Anti-Dem trolling and unhinged bullshit but damn she’s so good as Bette Davis. I wish she wasn’t such a jerk-off because I forgot how good she can act. Jessica Lange is also really great as Crawford.
zhena gogolia
@UncleEbeneezer: Yes, Sarandon is a good actor. I haven’t watched that yet. I’ll have to see where it’s streaming.
Thanks, Betty C. I need upbeat posts after seeing the word “landslide” so often coupled with “Trump” the last few days.
UncleEbeneezer
@Matt McIrvin:
BINGO. The people I know who flirt with this kind of stuff, I can’t help notice but it’s a big part of their identity of believing they are somehow smarter and more pure than everyone else and only a fool or sell-out gets excited about being in a coalition. And unfortunately it gets them a lot of attention and clicks. The whole thing is incredibly ego-centric.
zhena gogolia
@UncleEbeneezer: Just bought it. That’s catnip for me.
teezyskeezy
@UncleEbeneezer: The problem these people are gonna have is when the rubber meets the road in Trump II they won’t be so free to flaunt their horseshoe lefty bullshit online anymore. Of course they’ll curse Biden all the way to the gulag even though it’s Trump putting them there.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
@UncleEbeneezer:
Agreed. In a way, these people are like the GOP base — they value their status over ordinary Dems.
UncleEbeneezer
@zhena gogolia: It’s on Hulu. It’s really addictive. The costumes and sets are also amazing. But the main draw is just watching Lange and Sarandon be catty in a way that is totally awful, but totally fun. Stanley Tucci is also fantastic as a loathsome Jack Warner.
Season two: Capote Vs. The Swans, which comes out on Jan 31st, looks like it will be really fun, too.
Brachiator
I don’t understand Florida politics, but I am enjoying reading about this political course correction.
dmsilev
@Jeffro: Absolute unrestricted immunity, huh? So, as the Appeals Court asked in a hypothetical, there would be no legal problem whatsoever with Joe Biden ordering someone to shoot Trump?
zhena gogolia
@UncleEbeneezer: Yes, I saw that. OMG, Tom Hollander as Capote. That’s going to be great!
ETA: Calista Flockhart as Lee Radziwill!!!
UncleEbeneezer
@zhena gogolia: Us too. It’s like a more ridiculous Mad Men. Lots of fun scenes in iconic, Los Angeles settings too. And Kiernan Shipka (Sally Draper, Sabrina) plays Bette Davis’ daughter.
UncleEbeneezer
@Brachiator: Agreed. Now do Texas.
Betty Cracker
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Unclear at this point. A new crew, led by former ag commissioner Nikki Fried, took over last year. I like their in-your-face approach but have been burned too often over the years to believe anything has truly changed until I see more evidence.
TBone
I’m so happy about my former home DelCo turning blue for the first time ever in 2020. The Delaware County Republican political machine was controlled by William McClure and his son John J. McClure from 1875 to 1965.[18] Delaware County voted for the Republican candidate all but once from 1860 through 1988, with the exception being Lyndon Johnson‘s national landslide of 1964.
I remember reading Susie Madrak’s expressions of joy. A motorcycle type fella once told me a DelCo judge asked him what religion he was and he answered “Republican.”
moops
Trump screaming about NEEDING absolute immunity reminds me of Mr. Burns yelling in court that he should be allowed to run over as many kids as he wants.
wjca
Perhaps that nice young lady in North Carolina has a close living in Florida who could be recruited…?
moops
Are there competitive congressional seats in Florida this coming November?
Matt McIrvin
@UncleEbeneezer: I just saw a dude on Mastodon, who I’d pegged as some kind of lefty, retweeting a guy whose thesis was “groups of people have no morality”–any group of people, from a club to a political party, was inherently corrupt, because “a group is power, and power corrupts”.
That’s just completely nihilistic from a political perspective. Every man is an island. It’s an open rejection of anything that could make positive change possible.
TBone
@UncleEbeneezer: wanna see!
Jay C
@jonas:
According to a few online reports I’ve seen: Alina Habba’s main “exposure and condemnation” seems to be with the E. Jean Carroll case jury. Even after the judge’s strict instructions to basically sit down, shut up and say/do/express nothing (for their own good, mind) – their faces/body language seem to have made their opinions of Habba’s/Trump’s courtroom antics pretty clear. And it’s not out of approval….
Scout211
huh?
Who is the president again, Donald?
hoppie
“I am not a member of any organized political party — I am a Democrat.” Same as it ever was….
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
I’m sure Biden’s campaign team monitors Trump’s Truth Social posts religiously, looking for opportunities to use his own words against him.
HumboldtBlue
Rep. Jasmine Crockett is back at it again.
Ken
Not unless the House voted to impeach, and the Senate voted to convict. And how likely is that, when Biden has members of Seal Team Six deployed around the House and Senate balconies?
Villago Delenda Est
“Something weird in Florida”. Wow, that’s oxymoron city!
mrmoshpotato
@West of the Rockies:
I don’t think frothy butt juice can really flameout.
BellaPea
@UncleEbeneezer: I watched Betty & Joan the first time around and loved it. I just watched it again. I thought Jessica Lange’s performance was particularly inspired given how sad the way things ended up for Crawford at the end of her life.
And yes, I’m from Tennessee and Fred Thompson was a major dud.
Brachiator
@HumboldtBlue:
I love short videos like this that briefly and clearly spell out the accomplishments of the Biden administration.
Here is a short video from Robert Reich debunking claims the Republicans make to praise Trump.
We need more of this to counter the lazy political media narrative.
Does anyone know if the Democrats officially use short form videos?
WaterGirl
@Old School: New leadership, I believe.
Baud
@HumboldtBlue:
Oh, Jamie Dimon will be unhappy.
Ken
@Jay C: Always good to impress a jury with your childish attitude and inability to follow instructions, said absolutely no lawyer ever.
Citizen Alan
@Baud: To be fair, voting in most red states (only on a Tuesday with no mail-in options) is a fairly arduous process, and if you view it as hopeless because of gerrymandering or simply demographics, I can see why you might decide it wasn’t worth the effort. I never did because I consider voting against the GOP to be a moral imperative. But (a) I’ve always had a job where I could take off a few hours on Tuesday or else had a good excuse for absentee voting and (b) the last time a Dem candidate I voted in Mississippi won in any race above the local level was over 20 years ago.
WaterGirl
@Jeffro: Partial translation of his puked up screed.
“We gotta let police do their thing. Sometimes you just have to live with a whole pile of dead black males. :: shrug ::
Scout211
No, you don’t get it. His lawyers were clear that If that happened, Biden would be impeached and then the Senate would find him guilty and then he will be out of office and then he will be arrested and tried for murder. Oh no, that can’t be true because Trump’s lawyers and his Truth Social rantings have declared a president’s immunity lasts forever and ever, amen. Hmmm.
So Biden will be held accountable for his crimes because he is Democrat and therefore all new rules for absolute presidential immunity will not apply.
Baud
@Citizen Alan:
Florida was never as hopeless as MS, and I think they can vote by mail.
patrick II
I just read this about Nikki Haley over at the Post:
Evidently, due to conservative voter unhappiness, she regrets her walk back of slavery as a cause of the Civil War. Evidently enslaving an entire race isn’t racism. As for me, I am old enough to remember the large “Whites Only” sign at the bus station in Pensacola, FL.
H.E.Wolf
I know I’m a terrible bore on this subject… but there’s at least one way to help FL inch toward blue.
PostcardsToVoters.org is continuing its project of inviting FL Democrats to sign up for FL Vote By Mail. It’s a joint effort by PTV and the FL Democratic Party.
Undaunted by the FL Republican-dominated state legislature’s shifting of the Vote By Mail goalposts, PTV is just quietly chugging away, getting Dems to vote by mail… which has a higher participation rate than voting at the ballot box.
PTV is focused on 2 special elections in mid-Feb., after which I anticipate plenty of addresses for the FL Vote By Mail project.
The bar to participate is very low: sign up, request addresses (4 minimum, with 3 days to write and mail), write 3 sentences provided by the campaign, and voilà! instant democracy. :)
[email protected]
[Tony is the founder of PTV, hence the domain name.]
As beloved commenter NotMax noted earlier today: GOTV is always crucial! This is one way to help make that happen.
zhena gogolia
@HumboldtBlue: What did they say? I couldn’t hear it.
Citizen Alan
@UncleEbeneezer: I can’t watch Susan Sarandon in anything. I just can’t. I’m afraid Dr. Wong will become increasingly important on Rick & Morty, and she will ruin one of my favorite shows merely through the power of her voice.
Jeffro
She should just have trumpov tell the GOP base that “slavery was bad and we totally used to be a racist country” and they’d do a 180 so fast it would affect the spin of the Earth.
Chris
@NotMax:
Who?
Citizen Alan
@UncleEbeneezer: I just think Texas is lost if Greg Abbot can brazenly plot to outright kill illegal immigrants and seemingly pay no political price for it. It’s a failed state, IMO. Or as Molly Ivins put it: Mississippi with good roads.
H.E.Wolf
From a 2020 Facebook post by PTV, on reason(s) for focusing on FL:
TBone
@HumboldtBlue: she strikes like lightning. Blam, take THAT!
TBone
@mrmoshpotato: let’s hope not 😆
TBone
@patrick II: I wish Madea would knock her teeth out.
Philbert
I’m hearing how stupid Habba is, but she’s got a few million off TFG so far!
Though, I’m not sure if that’s hers or split among whoever.
JBWoodford
@Old School: AIUI, independents broke strongly for Keen.
I’m hoping that success will breed success in FL–Dems who’ve been staying home because it’s not worth voting will be encouraged to turn out, and the vote by mail push would help a lot with that.
Bill Arnold
@Scout211:
Not if he kills those Senators who might find him guilty. Or, to save time and be safer from the law, all Representatives who might vote to impeach. And maybe the SCOTUS Six, as an additional protective (from the law) measure.
That was the obviously logical extension of the argument.
catclub
@Chris: An old guy who sounded presidential – because he was a republican.
Funny they never consider our guy is old and sounds presidential because of it.
catclub
@Citizen Alan:
I thought Moore as Democratic AG was less than 20 years ago.
Geminid
@moops: I don’t know about Congressional seats; gerrymandering may have eliminated purple districts in Florida.
But former Representative Mucarsel-Powell is the likely challenger for Rick Scott, and that could be a competitive race. As Mucarsel-Powell points out, Scott has never won a race by more than 1% and has never run in a Presidential year.
Ms. Mucarsel-Powell flipped Carlos Curbelo’s Dade County seat in the 2018 Blue wave, then lost it in 2020.
Chip Daniels
Trump’s base hasn’t grown or changed one bit since 2016.
If you weren’t a Trumper in 2016, you probably weren’t in 2020, and probably won’t be in 2024.
Daoud bin Daoud
@jonas: The Orange Obscenity picked Habba for her cheekbones, not for her legal acumen. You get what you pay for.
Citizen Alan
@catclub: No. Moore left office in 2004. Though he was replaced by Democrat Jim Hood who held the AG’s office through 2020. He was a bit of a mixed bag, which is probably why I totally forgot he was a Dem despite voting for him six times.
Albatrossity
I certainly hope that Baja Alabama takes a left turn soon. That would be a very good sign that the country has finally found its compass.
Bupalos
Florida will rise again!!!!
It’s going to need to, what with that whole “7 foot higher sea level thing”
But nonetheless.
Paul in KY
@Jeffro: Old English Kings (pre 1540) didn’t get this kind of immunity from all acts.
Paul in KY
@dmsilev: So long as the Senate didn’t complete the Impeachment.